Rin's Deal
by petrous
Summary: Rin can't remember the name on her contract, which means she's stuck in the bathhouse forever. But when an unexpected letter comes from a girl she once helped, Rin finds she has the chance to make her own deal.
1. Now (Part 1)

_Rin_. That was her name. Every shift, she turned her dangling wooden plaque on the wall to clock in, but the word carved into it was a lie. In case she'd forgotten, since _Rin_ was a normal name in her human world, Yubaba hadn't even left her the comforting illusion of normal script. It was carved in the blocky script of monks: a girl's name like a monkey-god from the sutras, a joke.

And while Yubaba had your name, you were stuck. There were dozens of lost, gullible or unlucky spirits that had ended up like her. Humans were rarer, but Rin knew she wasn't the only one. Sen had been another one. Rin thought there might even have been others who had got out, apart from Sen and Haku, but in truth the memories faded after a few dozen years. She wasn't sure how many dozens of years she had been here.

Sometimes she wondered if she could work it out for herself. _Rin._ Yubaba had a malicious habit of leaving you something from your name: a character, or a sound, or a clue. Maybe _Rin _had meant _bell_, or _wood_. There were dozens of ways of writing it. And she might have had a family name which would be on the contract too. She couldn't be certain, and while she wasn't certain, there was no way out.

But Rin wasn't looking for a way out. Not yet.

Rin leaned on the wooden railing of the veranda, looking down past the flapping laundry. The pale sea stretched out miles below her. Islands were dotted like emeralds in the distance, and the breeze, fresh against her face, carried the tang of salt. The middle and lower floors were hot and sticky work in the summer. By mid-morning she was glad to get out here for the feeding.

The weather birds were often skimming the waves below by this point, their morning clouds already seeded above. But the sea below her was flat and calm, ruffled only by the occasional wave. She looked up instead at the vast expanse of sky – ah, there they were. In the distance a flock of white birds wheeled and changed direction all at once, as if each bird was pulled by a thread around an invisible axis. There must be an order for high cloud today.

She put two fingers in her mouth and let out a piercing whistle. The birds carried on wheeling, but when she whistled again, a couple of them broke off from the flock and started arrowing down. She pushed herself away from the railing and upended the seed buckets onto the floor.

The birds flapped down with ugly squawks, setting the feed skittering in the buffeting air. They were each as tall as Rin's thigh, with beaks like razors and cloud charms strapped to their legs. Rin jumped back as one of swooped by her head with a _skree_. "Watch it!"

She was putting the bucket down when there was a feathery _whumph_ and something landed on her shoulder like a tackle. She yelped and staggered forward, grabbing the rail. A gull-like head came around to peer at her face with a beady eye.

"Oh, it's you," Rin said, half-exasperated. "You don't need to land on me like you're trying to eat me." This bird was the runt of the flock, its head streaked with black. It had taken a shine to her in the years she'd been on the feeding shift. She had mentally named it Kiku, for old times' sake, but she never said the name aloud.

She crouched down, holding the rail to help her, and fed it a handful of grain from the bottom of the bucket.

"Oi, Rin!" A boy with ferret ears was lugging a bucket of soapy water out, dodging the beaks pecking at his feet. "Taro back there has sacrifice mail for you."

"_Mail?_" Rin said. Her hand dropped in surprise. On her shoulder, Kiku gave a squawk of protest and snapped at her fingers, nearly drawing blood. "All right, all _right_, you stupid bird." Rin grabbed more grain. "Are you having me on, Tachi?"

Tachi checked the direction of the wind and heaved the bucket over the edge with a grunt. Water splashed into the wind and was carried away from the walls. "Swear by Yubaba's toenails. Dedicated message for you. Didn't come with any gold, though. I checked."

"Help me get rid of these birds," Rin said. She heaved up the arm Kiku was perching on. It was like trying to throw a sack of rice in the air, and Kiku only gave an indignant flap and settled back down. Her claws sunk into the skin of Rin's arm like nails. Rin glared at her, inured to this after decades of it. Her scar tissue was getting impressive. "_Shoo, _bird!"

Tachi grinned and helped her chivvy the others into flight. The seed was nearly gone now, and the birds knew they had a contract to fulfill just like the cleaning staff. Kiku didn't want to join the flock, though. She hovered a few yards in the air. Just as Rin was bringing in the feed bucket, she made a dive for the open doors.

"_No!_" Rin said, and jerked the door shut. Kiku crashed into it. There was a displeased _caw_ and receding wing beats.

"Orders?" Tachi said, loping along beside her. He had the slightly uneven gait of spirits who were used to having four legs, although he'd been there nearly as long as Rin. He didn't have a real name either.

"Are the rooms done?" Rin said. "Veranda, then, and cloths for the corridors – I want to see them shining. Then move on to the next floors."

"All five floors?" Tachi said. "We've got contract negotiations today."

Rin snorted. "That'll take no longer for you than for me." Every year they had to go in and admit they had no idea what name their contract was in. It was over in moments. "It won't take any time at all for most of the Group."

"Still, a couple of the juniors have real contracts," Tachi said. They were passing an open door, and there was a splash and a yelp from the balcony below. Both of them ran over to lean over the balcony. Below, drying laundry had been splashed grey by soapy water.

"JIRO!" Rin shouted. There was a croaking apology. Rin rolled her eyes. "I could happily lose Jiro to contract negotiations for the whole day," she said. "Tell him to try for a transfer to the boilers." Tachi grinned, bowed, and went off to hurry the rest of the group in their cleaning.

"Taro," Rin called, catching sight of the mail carrier. "Tachi said you had mail for me?"

A frog in a red coat hopped down into a crouch in front of her and handed her a strip of red-bordered paper splashed with black ink. It smelt faintly of ash. "Ise province," the frog croaked. "Ise shrine. Didn't come with an offering."

"Thanks," Rin said, staring down at it. The first character she looked at said _Sen_, but that wasn't the whole name. Four characters. _Ogino_ _Chihiro. _She rounded the corner to a service passageway and opened the folded paper.

The title was in a clear priest's hand. _Dedicated to the noble spirit __**Rin**__ of the bathhouse of __**Aburaya. **_Rin gave a half-grin at 'noble' and 'spirit' both – Sen had been cute, but she'd been ten, scared, and wrapped up in her own problems. Fair enough.

The message itself was in a much less flowing hand, messy and childish. Sen must have written this bit herself.

_I hope you get this. I didn't know which shrine to offer it at. I meant to send a thank-you before, but school has started and there's not much free time. But I went to a diviner in my town and asked him about your name. He says, __**bell**__. Haku helped him, so I think he's right. I hope it helps. Thank you again for everything_.

Sen had written _bell_ in a great splash of black ink. Rin stared at it, and stared and stared. Her name. Sen had given her back her name.


	2. Then

Rin was sixteen again – how many centuries ago was that, now? – and walking between paddy fields behind her mistress, Okiku. In her memory, Okiku was strolling slowly and playing a flute, her hair unbound and nearly covering her red and white shrine robes. Okiku's face was flat and undistinguished, but her hair was a shining fall that she liked to show off whenever she went out. It would be a mass of knots by the end of the day.

The melody wandered off halfway through a song and slid into self-indulgent swoops. Rin rolled her eyes. So much for sacred melodies. Lady Okiku's reputation spread far outside the province and she was lazy and coasted on it. People came from Shikoku, from the Tosando, even from distant Edo to pay silver for her protection charms and gold for her purification rituals. Okiku was three years younger than Rin and seldom had anyone telling her no.

Okiku abandoned the swoops and dropped the flute. Rin picked it up without missing a step.

"I'm bored," Okiku said, casting a disconsolate look around the rice fields. "This patch of lands is clear. There are no spirits to call, it's _supernaturally_ empty."

"If it was supernatural there'd be spirits," Rin said, tucking the flute into her belt.

"Oh, _so _clever, Rin," Okiku said. (Only the way she said '_Rin'_ rang oddly in Rin's memory. Did Okiku always say it like that?)

"Try playing the flute," Okiku said. "Maybe they'll come to you."

Rin raised her eyebrows and blew. It made a sound like a whistling pig.

Okiku covered her ears, but she was laughing. "Stop!" she said. "Making that sound is probably a beating offence."

Rin grinned. "A beating is shouting outside during rituals, that's probably _execution_."

Okiku's eyes narrowed suddenly. They were fixed on shadow by Rin's ear, the first time she'd looked at her properly this morning. They'd both been busy. "Someone hit you," she said flatly.

Rin had tried to explain, time and time again, that stewards and senior priests and _anyone_ in power motivated underlings with cuffs round the head. But Okiku was a shrine maiden and untouchable, and had an endearingly peculiar belief everyone else should be untouchable too, starting with her attendants.

"It doesn't hurt," Rin said instead, which was the absolute truth and Okiku never believed it.

Okiku was scowling furiously. "I am going to have _words_. Who was it?"

"The steward. Look, we should try that forest," Rin said. "Unless you want to go back with no spirits. The other shrine maidens will have found theirs already."

Okiku was easy to divert like that. She turned, her hair fanning out, and glared at the forest with all traces of her good mood gone. "They had better be in there," she said.

Rin laughed. "You'll really pull them in with a face like that." Okiku ignored her and grabbed the flute from her belt again.

The late autumn sun made the fields feel like summer. The forest should have been cooler but, to Rin's unease, the air just felt closer. It moved in little warm breezes around them and sometimes seemed to curl against Rin's skin like the flick of a cat's tail. Okiku seemed to have picked the eeriest flute song she knew. Rin shivered.

The path they were following started broad enough for two horses abreast, but after very little time it had narrowed down to little more than an animal track. Rin soon stopped peering in the trees. She wasn't sure she actually wanted to see anything.

"Look at this, Rin," Okiku said, bending down. By the side of the narrow track, nestled in the roots of a tree, was a tiny stone figurine. Some kind of miniature dog, its mouth open and its tongue lolling out. It should have been friendly. Its posture reminded Rin of something.

She found she'd backed away. "My lady, no," she said. "Don't touch it."

Okiku looked at her in surprise. "Don't be silly," she said. "It's just a dog statue. There's power in it, though. I can feel it."

"If there's power in it then why are you picking it up?" Rin had backed away another step.

"_Because_ there's power in it," Okiku said. "And dog spirits are friendly."

"You don't need it," Rin said. She didn't know where this opposition was coming from, only that the dog's painted black eyes looked far more awake than stone should.

"I want it," Okiku said, weighing it in her hand. "I can use it." She saw Rin's face and laughed. "I won't make you carry it."

She turned away. As she did, there was a roaring, and the sound of a rushing river. Rin looked over her shoulder, and saw, impossibly, dark water rushing at them through the trees, as high as a house. Okiku shrieked. The light was draining from the forest as if something had covered the sun.

Rin grabbed for Okiku's hand as she backed away. "Run!" She found it and pulled hard, but Okiku seemed rooted to the spot, staring at the water. There was no _time—_

The river hit, and they were both lifted off their feet.

_We're going to hit the trees_, Rin thought, panicked. _We're going to be battered to pieces_. But miraculously the trees seemed to have gone. She couldn't tell if she was sucking in air or unreal water, but she choked anyway. After a short eternity of nausea and spinning darkness, some kind of hook snared the back of her kimono and hauled her out.

When the darkness cleared from her eyes, she was sprawled on a muddy shore. In the distance there was what looked like a village. Rin pushed herself up with shaking arms. That couldn't be right. There were no villages round here.

But straight up ahead there was someone who spelled _authority._ A small, shrivelled old woman with gold-weave kimono and her hair dripping with jewels was regarding them unfavourably. There were two monstrous dogs either side of her, their shoulders as high as the woman's head. Other strange shaped spirits stood around: animals in kimono and ladies with extra sets of eyes in their forehead. A frog was leaning on a boathook, looking pleased with himself for hooking them out.

"_Thieves,_" the woman said. Her voice was like nails on glass.

"No," Rin said, eyeing the dogs nervously. They looked like the figurine.

"No!" Okiku echoed indignantly, struggling to her feet. "How dare you!"

The dog on the left growled and bounded forward, bending down to snap near Okiku's hand. She went pale and dropped the figurine, which the dog picked up carefully in his mouth. He brought it back to lay at the old woman's feet. She leaned down, muttering as if her back hurt, and picked it up.

"A Guardian statue," she said, looking up. Her tone was arctic. Rin suddenly remembered where she'd seen that posture before – it was how the guardian lions of shrines sat.

"We were just looking at it," Rin said. "There's no harm in looking."

The old woman stared at them for another moment. "Kill them," she said.

"No!" Okiku shouted as the dogs exploded forward. There was a weight on Rin's shoulders and suddenly she was on her back, staring at the sky, her head whirling. Okiku was choking out words beside her, under the growling of the other dog. "I was going to take it! It was me, don't hurt her!"

The dog on top of Rin stopped, sniffing at her. The woman cackled. "Now we hear it," she said. "Little girls out of their depth. Stand up, girl."

Okiku got to her feet, but _of course_ she didn't stop talking. "It's only a small thing, and I can put it to good use," she said. "Haven't you heard of me? You must have heard of me if you've heard of Izumo shrine. I did a protection charm for the shogun."

Yubaba was giving her an amused and incredulous look. She snapped her fingers and the dogs returned. Rin swallowed a groan and pushed herself up to a sitting position, clutching her stomach where the dog had rested its enormous paw.

Sitting on the ground meant she could see Okiku's feet. And as she came out with excuse after excuse, her ankles and robes were turning slowly white.

Rin recoiled, her whole body prickling. This was magic – very, very wrong magic. Okiku was still coming up with steadily more confident excuses as Rin pushed herself to her feet, dread collecting in her stomach. She grabbed Okiku's shoulder. "Lady Kiku," she said. "_Shut up!_"

"Stop it, Rin," Okiku said, trying to shrug her hand off. The white was creeping up her legs, faster and faster, and she hadn't even noticed. "When she hears –" Even as she spoke, the white was flowing up her chest. Her eyes widened, and she tried to say something, but that was the moment it caught her throat. All that came out was a strangled noise.

Rin stared at her, frozen with horror. Her clothes no longer moved with the breeze. Her eyes didn't blink. Every hair had turned into the finest carved thread of stone.

Yubaba gave a cackling laugh and hobbled up to her. She and Okiku were about the same height. She reached up and touched the ivory cheek. "Very nice," she said. "Shall we smash it? Might be worth more as shards."

"No!" Rin said, putting a hand in between them. "I don't know what you've done, but _turn her back_!"

For a moment, she was afraid that she was going to get exactly the same treatment, but Yubaba merely stamped her stick near Rin's foot. Rin jumped back.

"Why would I want to do that, girl?" Yubaba said. The way she peered up into Rin's face made Rin feel she had the spiritual defences of a small puddle. "Have you got anything to offer me?"

Rin hesitated and stayed silent, thinking wildly. She didn't have anything that might be of interest to a spirit. "What do you want?" she said at last.

Yubaba smiled, showing a set of predatory teeth that didn't look like an old lady at all. "Well, my dear, since you ask so nicely," she said. She raised a hand and a scroll slid into it from her sleeve by magic. "Your name will do."

Rin didn't look at Okiku's stony, nauseatingly still presence by her side. Her stomach felt like a solid ball of lead was nestling in it, growing heavier by the moment. "If I give you my name, what do I get?"

"A reprieve for your friend," Yubaba said, still smiling. Her eyes were harder than any Rin had seen. "And a condition. To turn her back."

"An impossible one?" Rin said. She'd heard enough tales of spirits.

Yubaba cackled. "So suspicious for one so young! Of course not, my dear." She unrolled the scroll, the very bottom of which looked like some sort of contract. "Just difficult."

Rin glanced at Okiku and swallowed hard. "And if I don't?"

Yubaba raised her stick and tapped at Okiku's arm. It made a hollow, fragile sound.

Rin pushed back her sleeves. "Give me a writing brush," she said grimly.


	3. Now (Part 2)

Rin had never gone into the Foreman's office for contract negotiations with any degree of trepidation. She'd never had anything to gain, or, for that matter, anything to lose. This time, though, she tucked Sen's letter inside her kimono, safe in the layers of cloth, and tried not to pay attention to the racing of her heart.

The Foreman was a housecat the size of a bear. Its head was level with Rin's shoulder, standing, and its paws were the size of plates, but its voice was female and it was always _ma'am_ among the staff.

"Rin," she said, looking up from a document she was correcting with a writing brush held in her tail. "You're the last of Group Ten. Still no name? Good, fine, send in the—"

"Actually," Rin said, sitting on her heels on the tatami, her throat feeling oddly dry, "I found it."

The Foreman froze. "_What?"_

"My name," Rin repeated, pulling out Sen's message. She spread it on the desk in front of the Foreman.

The Foreman hissed when she saw Sen's name in the signature. "That _girl child!_" The Foreman had been responsible for the clean-up after No-face had destroyed half the bathhouse. It would take her longer than a few months to forget that grudge.

"Here," Rin said, laying a finger on the 'bell' character.

The Foreman gave a low growl. "So," she said. "You want to cancel your contract."

"Maybe," Rin said. It probably wasn't good to play her hand too soon. There was only one card in it.

"_Maybe?"_ the Foreman said. "You're on a group leader salary – we could possibly add to that," she said, a new and thoughtful note in her voice. "A little."

"I want to see Yubaba," Rin said.

The Foreman acted as if Rin had dropped a rotten fish on her desk. Her ears drew back and she recoiled with a hiss. "You don't know what you're saying."

Rin pushed up her sleeves, a nervous habit. "I'm only discussing my contract with Yubaba." Yubaba never had a title in the bathhouse. Her name was the title.

"She'll turn you into soup," the Foreman growled. "She'll feed you to Bo. You're a fool."

Rin crossed her arms and said nothing.

The Foreman's tail lashed, inadvertently sending a spray of ink over her desk cushion. "Fine, then," she said. "I'll write you a pass. And then I'll start looking for a new leader for Group Ten, since you'll find it hard to carry out your duties when she's turned you into a slug."

"Tachi's a good choice," Rin said brightly. "Tends to forget he doesn't have a tail, though."

The Foreman only snarled and poked her tail in the document shelves to find a pass. She pressed her gold seal into the red wax and pushed it over to Rin with one claw.

"Thanks." Rin gave a shallow bow and tucked it into her kimono. "I'll try not to get turned into anything."

When she got up to the top floors, though, she wasn't feeling nearly so breezy. She slipped up the edges of plush staircases and through corridors lined with gilded screens. Several times she had to slip around a corner and stay there, frozen, while a magisterial guest floated or crawled down the corridor. A Group as low as Ten was supposed to be invisible on these floors. She took the service corridors wherever she could.

Yubaba's quarters were up the last flight of stairs and through an arch formed by a pair of gilded dragons. Their flaming heads roared at the apex. On either side there was a stone Guardian lion with a manic, distorted face, one snarling and one sneering. Rin bowed to them and held up her pass. They didn't move as she slipped through.

"Who is it?" Yubaba's voice shrieked. Rin held her breath as she crept into the cave of tapestries and gold leaf and deep carpets. Strange masks leered at her from the walls. Sen had done this. If a ten-year-old could, she had to be able to.

She could hear the skree of weather birds outside, which was almost comforting, but there was also a bouncing, glubbing noise from an inner room that Rin didn't recognise and a burbling that must be Bo. She didn't want to meet Bo. She gulped and stepped into the main study.

Yubaba was sitting behind a desk. Rin stood transfixed, staring behind her.

"Yes, what?" Yubaba snapped, looking up. Her writing brush didn't stop its spidery crawl over the scroll in front of her.

But Rin couldn't make herself speak, or bow, or even look away. She was staring at the ivory statue behind Yubaba's desk.

It was an exquisite statue of a shrine maiden holding a purification flute, her hair lifted as if by a sudden breeze. Her ash-white eyes were frozen in her face, frightened and achingly sad. Every feature was at once familiar and oddly different. She looked – too young. Rin shivered violently.

The painful crack of a stick across her face brought her back to her senses. She recoiled and put her hand to her cheek, tasting blood in her mouth. Yubaba was standing in front of her, stick raised. "Don't ignore me, girl!" she snapped. "What kind of contract worker are you?"

Rin took a couple more steps back and bowed, her face hard and blank. "Sorry," she said, because that was what you said.

Yubaba hobbled to a chair by one of the open veranda doors and sat in it. "Come and sit down here so I can look at you," she said. "Rin, isn't it?" She cackled. "Or not Rin, how would you know?"

Rin frowned but moved and sat on her heels on the open threshold of the veranda. A cool breeze came in from behind the wicker screen. The weather birds cawed just outside, spiralling up in a flock, but Rin clenched her fists and ignored them. Yubaba's stick bore up under her chin and forced her to look up.

"Aging nicely, aren't you?" Yubaba said, giving her face a scrutinizing look. "Two years in what, three centuries? Humans are so unpredictable. It could take thousands more for you to grow old." She snickered. "What is it, then? If you've come to waste my time- _eurgh!"_

Rin jumped at the shattering crash from behind her. She turned to see a dazed weather bird falling away from a collison with the screen. Yubaba shook her stick at it. "Away, you filthy bird!" she screeched. "I'll send the paper fliers after you!"

But Rin had caught sight of the black feathers on the bird's temples. "Don't, Yubaba!" she said. That was Kiku.

That had been a mistake. Yubaba was looking at her with narrowed eyes. "Making friends with weather birds? Dirty, flea-ridden things. I ought to have them all culled." She uncurled one knobbly finger and jabbed the lacquered nail at Rin. "I suppose you're here to beg for your friend to be turned human."

Rin jumped. Yubaba couldn't read minds. Someone would have told her. "I – I –" _Pull yourself together_, she told herself. "Yes," she said firmly.

Yubaba cast a look at Okiku's statue decorating her study. "You know the condition!" she said. "She kneels on this floor" – the finger jabbed at the ground – "and apologises, she turns back."

Rin's fists clenched. "She's a statue. She can't move."

Yubaba gave a screeching laugh. "Well, then, it looks like she'll stay a statue, won't she?"

There was no point arguing. Rin had tried arguing, back at the beginning. She'd just found herself with months of sewage duty and docked pay. "I found my name," Rin said instead.

"You _what_?" Yubaba snapped, her current-black eyes going back to Rin. "Impossible! Not two of you in a year."

Rin didn't take out Sen's letter because even the sight of Sen's name was likely to send Yubaba into a rage. Instead, she sketched the character in the air. "_Rin,"_ she said, throwing the word like a challenge. "Bell."

Yubaba stared at her, and then let out a snort of laughter. That hadn't been the reaction Rin was expecting. She kept her face blank and put her hands on her knees.

"And what do you want to do with that?" Yubaba said, her voice slipping into the sweetest of old-lady tones. Rin felt uneasiness knot her stomach tighter. She wished the weather birds would shut up. One of them was clinging to the roof and pecking at the screen, and the cawing was making it hard to concentrate.

"I want you to turn Okiku back," she said. "I'll trade my name back to you for it."

"Oh my _dear_," Yubaba said. The sugary tone grated down Rin's back. Yubaba sketched the same character in the air. As her finger nail traced the lines they glowed red, until the character was suspended in the air between them. "What makes you think you have the right name?"

"What?" Rin said.

Yubaba sneered and slashed a finger through the character. It turned black and shrivelled into a puff of smoke. "No, no, _no!_" she said. "Incorrect! Your contract was never made out to a Rin at all, girl!"

"But Sen said-"

_"Sen!_" Yubaba shrieked, climbing to her feet with the help of her stick. Her face was growing red. "That interfering little chit! I should have wrung her neck!"

Rin pulled out the message and thrust it desperately at Yubaba. "Look!"

"Rin isn't your name," Yubaba snapped. "It's worth nothing! You don't have your name to bargain with! You don't even have your friend's!"

"I know her name!" Rin snapped back. "Okiku! I haven't forgotten it!"

Abruptly Yubaba's mouth curled. "Okiku the little shrine maiden. What was her _family_ name?"

Rin stopped.

Yubaba put her head on one side, her eyes bright and smug like a bird's. "Three hundred years is an awfully long time, my dear," she said. She curled her hand as if picking something out of the air. "I'll keep both of your names safe. Run on back to work."

At her dismissive gesture, Rin got automatically to her feet. It felt like her limbs were weighted with something heavy. She caught Okiku's anguished ivory stare and looked away, despair seeping into her like ice water. It hadn't been worth it. She had never had a name to bargain with in the first place.

The weather birds cawed behind her, one of them shaking the wicker screen again. "Filthy things," Yubaba muttered. "Girl, be a dear and drive them off."

Rin turned around to obey without thinking, glad for anything that would take Okiku's eyes off her.

But something was wrong. When had Yubaba got Okiku's name? Okiku wasn't on a contract. A statue couldn't write, let alone work.

Rin whirled back around and stared at the statue. Yubaba had been talking as if Okiku was on the same contract as Rin. But Rin had talked to everyone in the bathhouse by now. She would know if Okiku had ever worked there. Or surely Okiku would have found her—

"Get on with it!" Yubaba snapped.

White fire seemed to be filling Rin's head as she turned away from the statue. Could she have been that stupid? Could she have been worrying over a statue for _three hundred years_ when Okiku wasn't even inside it?

She threw open the wicker screen. "KIKU!" she shouted. "KIKU, GET IN HERE!"

There was a _skree_ like the sky ripping, and the runty weather bird dived into the room. It brought down a chunk of the screen, hit the wall and bowled over, thrashing in a tapestry it had torn from its hangings.

"What are you doing?" Yubaba shrieked, flailing at it with her stick.

"Get _down_, Kiku!" Rin said, grabbing at the bird. She managed to disentangle it – her_ –_ from the tapestry. The bird gave her a panicked look from one beady eye and ducked Yubaba's stick, flapping her wings.

"You have to apologise!" Rin said frantically. "Kneel and apologise! _That's the condition, Okiku!_"

The bird froze in her hands. It lay down awkwardly, resting its head on the ground, and croaked out something that didn't sound like a normal caw.

"_Damn_ you!" Yubaba said.

Rin wasn't listening, because suddenly there was a pile of tattered robes and salt crusted hair and warm _human_ body next to her. "Okiku!"

The face that turned up to hers wasn't perfect like the statue. Okiku was two years older, for a start, her features changed with time and sunburn and weathering on her cheeks. But she had exactly the same confused and outraged look on her face as whenever anything happened that she didn't understand. Her voice, when she spoke, was familiar and breathless. "You took your time!"

"Get out!" Yubaba shouted, cracking at both of them with her stick. "I still hold both your contracts! You don't have names! Get back to work!"

It was like being swatted at by a child. Rin tried to suppress a laugh as she hauled Okiku to her feet, but couldn't. She was probably going to be on sewage duty for _years_ after this, and she didn't care at all. She grabbed Okiku's wrist and pulled. "Come on!"

Okiku half-fell after her in surprise. Rin yanked her mercilessly out of the rooms and down the steps. They couldn't risk getting caught up here; Rin didn't think Yubaba was in any mood to honour her pass. Okiku yelped and nearly fell down the first flight.

"Can't you go any faster?" Rin said, catching her.

"I'm used to flying," Okiku said, and for some reason that struck both of them as absurdly funny. They made it down the stairs, laughter spurting from both of them. It got worse and worse until they reached a service corridor on the first of Group Ten's floors and had to collapse in a heap, Rin sucking in great gulps of breath.

"We're hysterical," she said. "It's the relief. _Breathe_."

"Don't you – tell me – what to do, Suzu," Okiku said, but managed to get her breathing under control.

Rin choked. "_Suzu_?" she said.

"Yes?" Okiku said blankly.

Rin couldn't speak. _Suzu_. It was just the other way of reading _bell_.

She'd never been Rin at all. She could change her contract. She could go home. Only—

"Okiku," she said. "Do you remember your name as well?"

Okiku crossed her hands and held tight to her own wrists, her fingers pressing so hard they were leaving a white outline. "No," she said. "My family name's gone. Yubaba has it." She shook her head in a single, violent motion. That was new, Rin thought. It looked almost like a bird cocking its head.

"You'll be fine though," Okiku added. "You never had a family name. I wondered why you hadn't gone home already." Her hair was half-hiding her face. "I thought maybe – maybe you were waiting for me." Her voice was less certain than Rin ever remembered it. "I didn't realise you'd forgotten."

"_Rin?" _said a new voice.

Tachi was peering round the corner of the service corridor, shock written all over his face. "The Foreman said you'd found your name," he said. "She said you were going to tear up your contract – I don't _want_ to be Group Leader, Rin!"

Rin looked at the expressions on Okiku's face. She was trying to hide the pleading by looking fierce – Rin had seen her do that before, but it looked different on her fifteen-year-old face. All her expressions were different.

It struck Rin that Okiku didn't remind her so much of her thirteen-year-old mistress, who she hadn't seen for three hundred years, but someone much more recent. Someone ten years old, who'd barely known which end of a mop was which.

"Why do I always get landed with the spoiled brats?" she said to the air at large.

"_Suzu!_" Okiku said, poking her in the arm. Rin grabbed her wrist.

"Don't do that," she said. "Are you going to work, Okiku? We can find out your name – it's not impossible – but I won't have anyone in my group who can't work. It's not just flying around seeding cloud or wandering around with a flute."

Okiku gave her a startled look, her black eyes wide in her now dark-tanned face. "I –" she said, then broke off, and gave Rin another look. "I can work," she said slowly.

Rin got to her feet, stretching. She rubbed her cheek where Yubaba's stick had connected and offered Okiku a hand. "You're off the hook," she told Tachi, who nearly collapsed in relief. "Find me a red coat. This is the newest member of Group Ten. Oh, also," she added, as Okiku took her hand, "My name's Rin."

"Rin," Okiku repeated, and held her hand tightly.


End file.
